


[Used] Sell For Parts

by warschach



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Eventual Smut, Fluff, Getting Back Together, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Older Keith, Older Lance, Post-Canon, Reunions, or Lance and Keith have grown up sleep overs and pretend they're not still in love, team bonding up the ass cause i'm sensitive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-18 21:59:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11883666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warschach/pseuds/warschach
Summary: Lance saved the galaxy a few years ago and now he's enjoying his unofficial retirement back on Earth. It's a good set up, sun shine and a blue lake in his backyard, until Keith returns.Which isn't a problem except he and Lance used to date.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so this is an impulsive post as i like to have chapters written in advance but AS's dark vibes is bumming me out and I have to write my stupid jokes and soft klance.
> 
> this will have spoilers up to s3 but I keep future events purposefully vague so s4 doesn't completely obliterate this.

Lance walked out of the barn at the sound of thrusters entering the air, wiping off oil with an old rag as he watched the small pilot ship hovered into a clean landing a few feet from his place. The cockpit door peeled back with a hiss and a man climbed out and dropped to the ground.

Lance couldn’t find anything in him to stop his grin at the guy. Charcoal-black hair. Diamond sharp eyes. Face like a cruel blade. Made up of dying stars about to go supernova and eradicate everything in its system. A handsome shadowing of stubble along a crystal jawline. All decked in red.

Some shit never changed.

Some shit did like saving the galaxy from the clutches of Zarkon and Lotor.

Like feeling Blue sometimes in the dark; he wasn’t a paladin anymore according to the paperwork but she liked to call to him, asking if he was well. Sometimes Red popped in too, she favored Keith the most but their time as co-pilots opened the lion up.

Like having nightmares about their close calls— which was every damn mission they ever undertook. Voltroning ain’t easy.

Like losing both his legs on the final mission and getting set up with a Galra prosthetics like Shiro’s. The rad bonus of metal legs was Lance could run without tiring, jump higher without a jetpack, and walk without the need for shoes. The metal thumped on the floor and if he got careless with it, he left superficial fissures in the wood.

Like sleeping on a bed _bed_ on a planet and not in the castle. A bed that squeaked. A bed with a queen sized mattress.

Like not seeing the whole crew each morning— Hunk’s godlike touch in the kitchen, Shiro’s unwavering supportive smile, Allura’s determined blue eyes, Coran’s extensive Altean phrases that went over all their heads, Pidge’s fingers knuckle deep in tech, and Keith’s slick body of a fighter— skilled and dark— sluggish at the start of the day.

Shit changed.

They did.

The galaxy did.

Now it was safer and without the need of Voltron’s valor.

Lance met the man halfway from his ship, talking over the wind in a lazy drawl. “Ain’t you one of dem paladin? The one flying those big ol’ lion, you’re the red one right? I heard the blue one’s handsome as fuck.”

Keith smiled. He got old, well not an unkind old but a mature one with a harder face and body and a jawline with black stubble. They all grew up into young adults in that castle but now they were entering their thirties. “Lance.”

Lance tipped the lip of his cap up so it didn’t shadow his face. “Long-time no see, stranger. Still got that mullet.”

“It’s not a mullet, jackass,” he laughed.

Lance stuffed the rag into his back pocket. “Hey, hey, I didn’t say it was an ugly mullet.”

“It’s been a while,” Keith hummed.

“Like three years or something, dunno, I don’t keep track and I’m pretty sure that’s Voltron’s fault. Space is so weird. So this is a social visit, yes? Not some oh ‘Zarkon or Lotor’s third cousin has declared war on the universe’ bullshit.”

“Nah. Social.”

“Awesome.” Lance lassoed an arm around Keith’s broad shoulders, where Keith coiled all his strength like a slumbering cobra, and led him up the pathway.  “I like only one Galra landing on my planet…He’s hot as hell, you should see him, Keith.”

“Fuck you,” he sniped, but it was in laughter.

“You heard about Pidge, right?” He asked.

The softness in his face dissipated. “Shiro told me once I got back in the system…Fucked up, huh?”

Lance dropped his arm and stomped up the steps. “Yea. Ironic too. Space cats. Aliens. Wormholes. But the damage to the optic nerve is irreversible. Goes to show even aliens have some evolving to do too.”

“She here?”

“She’s driving Blue to get I dunno whatever makes her geek heart climax…Shut up with your face, dude.”

Keith refrained from snorting. His expression was super transparent about it though. “Blue? You named your car blue?”

“It’s a fully restored Chevy pickup. She’s my pride and joy.”

“Wow. Just wow.”

“New subject, please.”

“This place is nice.” Keith looked around. Healthy blades of grass lined the man-made paths of dirt and gravel. Trees whistled with the wind. Clouds orbited the powder blue sky and blocked the ray from the sun in the distant.

“Allura helped me  get some cash together so I could make this. I have my lake now but we don’t get any winter here cause of Texas weather. Light jacket season maybe but no real winter coats.”

“I’m happy. You’ve always wanted that.”

“Wanted plenty,” Lance said, knowing he meant the words differently.

Keith stared and understood what he meant. The former paladin dropped his eyes.

Dude, why would you be so bogus to him?

Shut it down.

No sad Keith, remember that, we banned Sad/Angsty Keith after he stepped in for Shiro.

 “Lance—“ He said, and Lance had years, _years_ , to read everyone in the gang but double for Keith so Lance knew the precise pitch of his voice, the minor downward sweep of his eyes to know when he felt guilt pressing on his spine.

“Let me make you some lemonade,” Lance said in a rush, not allowing a space for Keith to intervene. “It’s killer, seriously. Out of this world.”

Lance waved him to come up and held the screen door open for him to step through. It slammed shut behind them and the wood panels played back their steps into the kitchen.

 The kitchen had exposed bricks and ash gray cabinets with a stone countertop. Lance had noticed it once during one of their many diplomatic visits across the universe; he had returned after the war and asked the locals if he could take some with. Now it shimmered in his home and changed hues based on the heat in the room. It glowed pink now.

He pulled out a chair for Keith and touched his shoulders to seat him quickly. He pulled on his jacket next, startling Keith into a smile.

“What?”

“I gotta hang it. See I made a coat hanger.” He gestured to the pole of sanded wood with welded nails curved into dull hooks. Same ash color like the rest of the wood.

Keith handed it over and covered his mouth when Lance ran over and reverently hung his red jacket. He looked back and hitched his eyebrows in a _see what I did there, I hung the shit out of your jacket, sweet right_. “Wow.”

“Shut up. When was the last time someone offered to hang up your coat?”

“Never. I doubt anyone does that shit.”

“Well from now on, I will ask you and I will hang it.”

“Then I will come by twice a month.”

“Damn that’s two coat hangings. I gotta pencil that in my calendar.”

Keith rapped his knuckles on the table, trying to look impatient. “I was promised lemonade.”

“Wow. Hang a guy’s coat and he wants you waiting on him hand and finger.”

“You were the one proclaiming it was ‘out of this world’. I have to test that. For science.”

Lance laughed. “For science then.”

Living on a ship so long made him miss shit like this— wood cabinets, carpet, glass cup, a humming refrigerator. He grabbed a cup, set it on the table on top of a coaster, and got the pitcher from the fridge. Abnormally large wedges of lemon floated in the juice.

He filled the cup and watched Keith drink.

“It’s good,” Keith licked his lips; Lance’s eyes lingered long and hot. “Thanks.”

“I have a lemon tree so I have so many lemons laying around. I gotta use them for something.” He pulled out a chair and benched it. “Have you seen the others?”

“Not yet.” Keith dragged his finger down the glass. “I spoke to Shiro through our old radio channels when I entered the system but that was it.”

“Oh. I’m surprised you didn’t go to see him right away.”

“I wanted to see…” Keith bit on his lip and caught Lance’s eyes.

_You_

_I wanted to see you, Lance._

“So Pidge’s injuries, what happened?”

 He shrugged and traced the wood grain with his finger. “I guess old Z boy still had some loyalists left in the galaxy. They waited for us to disband and for Allura to start visiting planets without running deep with lions. She was at some meeting of political leaders to discuss about the dead planets Hagger jacked the quintessence from. Pidge went with, she was working as Allura’s head tech expert. At the meeting they detonated a bomb. Two leaders passed from their injuries. Allura got banged up bad, burns and broken bones. Pidge’s right arm and leg were severed clean and the impact cocked her head bad.”

 “Fuck,” he swore, not knowing what solace to offer to that.  “I’m sorry that I wasn’t—“

Lance cut him off and squeezed Keith’s hand and didn’t think twice about letting it go. Keith allowed it; his hand so much larger and callous than Lance last remembered it. Some scar made ridges on his pale skin. “Listen you being there or not wouldn’t have changed anything. It’s still the same result.”

Lance’s fingers folded around his— soft pads brushing soft pads. “I could’ve been there for her. For you guys.”

“…It’s okay. Really.”  He let Keith’s hand go then, hand hot already and growing sweaty from the sun and Keith, it was more for his sanity than anything else. Seeing Keith already had Lance on the ropes, eating fists and butterflies in his gut. Touching got his mind stuffing itself with cotton balls, all fuzz and soft foam.

“So Pidge lost the arm and leg. The healing pod fixed up the burns but the nerves in her right eye— like the pod could mend the nerves but the connection between her brain and the eye. It couldn’t fix that. She couldn’t see, so they built her a bionic eye.”

“That’s…fuck, man…that’s a lot”

Lance rubbed his neck. “Yea. But it has x-ray vision so she gets to look at people naked all the time.”

Keith about made himself into one of those arched Halloween cats. “What?”

 “I’m kidding. You looked a little grim there,” he said. “She’s getting used to well…the new parts and all. I told her that me, her, and Shiro should start a metal band since we’re all made of metal now. “

He shook his head. “That’s a horrible joke.”

Lance shot a breath between his teeth. “You’re just mad you can’t join us. You have all your human parts, loser.”

“I think you said the same thing when you lost yours.”

“Nah. It was like ‘I can totally kick your ass with these bad boys’.” Lance knocked on the metal of his leg through his jeans.

“Oh yea,” Keith hummed. “Then you fell off the bed because you hadn’t had any physical therapy.”

“Which I had and now I can do the sickest moonwalk ever.”

“What happened with the loyalists?”

“With you gone, and I’m not throwing shade at you, and Pidge down. Hunk, Shiro, and I took care of them. Got back in our lions, destroyed the base, and arrested the loyalists. They’re at the Iron Rock, high grade, maximum security prison. They were the last of Zarkon’s loyalists so Voltron can sit in his box for now.”

Keith started, “I’m sor—“

“If you apologize one more time, I will kick you with my metal leg and you don’t want that, buddy.”

“You guys coulda use me,” he insisted. Mopey and all, Lance could not have a mopey paladin in his house.

“Would’ve been overkilled with you there. Seriously. And you would ‘ve jacked all my thunder and I’m sick of that.”

“So what’s with the Hannah Montana theme?”

He laughed. ”Cause I got country in me.”

At this moment, there was the roll of tires over gravel, crunching beneath. The hum of the engine died down followed by a slam of the door. Steps jogged up the stairs and Pidge walked in with sweat glistening on her face. Her orange hair was hiked up in a ponytail and she ditched her old, spherical lens for contact lenses and a bionic eye.

“Sup Lance.” She turned, noticing Keith.  “Oh look, HotTopic.”

 “Hi to you too.”

“Did Lance tell you I’m basically Cyborg? I can see through your clothes.”

Keith slipped his arms under the table and over his crotch.

“She’s lying,” Lance said. “It’s a regular eye…sorta.”

“You’re wearing your Duck Tales underwear again.”

Lance hissed. “No!”

“Stop wearing the same pair two days in a row. It’s gross.”

“It’s called a washing machine, you gremlin.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

Pidge left after that. Days like today, she preferred to be in the barn with the old alien tech she was restoring and her computer with grease stains.

Lance asked Keith if he wanted to chill out and watch TV since they had the place to themselves. Keith spoke bit by bit of his space explorations. Who he saw. Who he fought, cause you know Keith had to get into a fisticuffs with at least one person in a new system. 

He talked about Voltron next. Of the good days where they bickered and Shiro scolded them to cool it. Of the lions and the power when they took flight in the sky.

It was one in the morning by the time Lance started to feel tired.

“Shit.” He pocketed his phone. “Later than I thought…”

“It’s okay.I lost track too.”

“Do you want to stay the night? There’s city a few miles up if you’d rather though I’m pretty sure the cops would ticket your ship if you parked it on the streets.”

“No. I’ll stay. If that’s okay with you and Pidge.”

“Pidge usually lets me take care of everything. She likes to work on things. Build machines. Hack into our neighbor’s Netflick account, start free trials under different emails, steal Sweet and Low from Dunkin Donuts, that kind of stuff.”

“It’ll be like old times.”

“Yea. But less dying and the fate of the galaxy crushing your psyche. C’mon I’ll show you your room.”

Lance clicked off the TV and turned off the lights, but left the lamp on the corner table on so that the yellow stream bleed out the curtains and to the front. The moon was out, full and white; Lance liked leaving some sort of light for Pidge when she stood up late.

He led Keith up the stairs. Photos framed the wall on their right. During their years with Voltron, Lance picked up one of those retro Kodak cameras from a swamp meat. He ran around the castle afterward, preying on everyone when they didn’t expect it and took their pictures.

 Pidge glued at the keyboard and colored in the blue humming from her laptop. Hunk’s hands deep in batter in the cafeteria. Allura and Shiro on the flight deck, talking to each other against the back drop of space. Coran fiddling with the control panel, blue glares flaring back. Keith kicked back in the lounge without his jacket, tired after a mission, back hair splayed all out.

His personal favorite was taken by a local on a planet they’d save with the lions lined at their back and the group pressed shoulder to shoulder. Coran blinked during the shot. Allura’s face was frozen in a tight smile because photographs weren’t familiar Altean tech. Lance popped bunny ears behind Keith’s head. Hunk’s smile was cheesy as hell and Pidge’s smirk mischievous. Shiro had one of those noble smiles, cool and handsome.

Keith pointed at that one. “I fucking knew it.”

“Oh, yea. I lied about the bunny ears.”

“You dick.”

“I’m more surprised you believed me,” he snickered. “I was so full of shit.”

“Still are.”

“I will put you in the shed, bud.”

They walked down the hall, white with moonlight. Lance opened the room at the end and flipped the switch.

He moved into the attached bathroom. “Bathroom’s right here for when you gotta go.”  Lance showed him the closet next on the other side of the room. “Closet for your douchebag jacket. Bed for your pretty mullet head. And the window.”

“What no joke for that one?”

“I ran out of ideas. Don’t judge me.”

“It feels good here. Looks like something rich people rent to get away from their rich homes”

“Easy to do out here because I have alien friends who happened to be royalty and Earth’s a sucker for alien hardware. I’ll leave you to it. My room’s across the hall. Pidge’s next to yours. And I’m just going to throw it out there…my bed’s open for old heroes of Voltron.”

Keith chewed on a smile. “I forgot.”

“What?”

“How much you made me laugh back then.”

Lance pretended to brush dust off his shoulders. “I’m a funny guy.”

“You’re a lot of things,” he said.

With this _weight_.

Meaning.

Like barbells tied to his heart kind of meaning.

And Lance remembered, yea, we were a lot of things.

You’re still a lot of things, Keith.

So many things, I think I’m forgetting which parts are from me or you.

He rubbed his nose. “I was serious. Hit me up. Like me at that sweet ass mullet.”

“Go to bed, idiot”

“Damn.” Lance inspected his hand with a mournful sigh, resigning himself to his fate.” Guess it’s my hand for tonight.  You ready to stroke the pole, champ— oh my god I’m kidding.”  He cackled when he saw Keith armed himself with not one but two pillows.

The old paladin entered his old fighting stance.

“Sleep,” he ordered, fisting the pillow tight to show he meant business.

He frowned, walking out with his head down. “Fine. At least my dreams listen to my desires.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

In the morning, Pidge joined them at the table for breakfast.

“Put on pants, my god,” she complained, throwing her hand out to shield her poor organic and bionic eye from the sight of Lance in his Duck Tales boxer briefs.

Keith, oddly, didn’t make any comment in favor for or against Lance ditching pajama bottoms.

Lance whipped out the spatula. “It’s ninety-one outside. Fuck you.”

“Well, your legs don’t get hot.”

“Neither does your leg or arm.” He traded. Two people could play the game of missing body parts.

“Don’t make me use my laser vision.”

“For the last time you don’t have laser vision…right?”

Pidge saddled in a chair, engaging Keith and pointedly avoided the unattractive fish gaping expression Lance directed to her. “I heard you went all Han Solo and went around the world. You didn’t beat anyone up, right?”

Keith sputtered. “I can go to another planet and not fight anyone. I’m a grown man…And it was one guy and not for the reason you think. He was drunk. Okay so was I. Shut up, Pidge. ”

Lance pounded his fist on the counter and looked back. “You got into a drunken brawl? Classic.”

“I wouldn’t talk Mr. I-Got-Captured-By-Ariel.”

“I fell through a wormhole and crash landed there. You act like I planned for that to happen. And Hunk got captured too, by the way.”

“Cause you went to chase mermaids.”

Pidge sighed from where she filled a cup with coffee. “I think I’m back on the ship with you guys bickering like that.”

“When are your ears coming in?” Pidge joked, touching Keith’s ear. “You’re supposed to be purple like Barney. Wait I think I see it starting here.”

Keith batted her hand, pushing his hair down to conceal the skin which was most certainly not developing any shade close to Barney or Galra. “I’m not turning purple.”

“No,” Lance mused as he inspected Keith’s other ear. “Just a hint of lavender maybe.”

“Fuck you and your Duck Tales underwear.”

Staggering back, Lance collapsed dramatically into the counter, clawing his chest as the strength in him faded. “Shit. Right in my heart.”

Keith threw his chair back. “That’s it. I’m getting you.”

Naturally, Lance shut off the heat, screamed with a delay, ran off valiantly just long enough to wedge on a strained grin to the paladin’s face and got caught by said paladin. He shrieked loud as Keith tackled him to the floor.

He squirmed, wiggling like a worm to escape Keith’s clutches but the paladin matched him wiggle for wiggle and kept Lance comfortably on the floor. And importantly, under him.

In a non-homoerotic fashion, of course.

Not like when they would train on the deck and fall into each other once the anger found a new canopy to go under and kiss until their bodies became too full of lust and longing.

No. Straight.

Super duper straight.

Straight to the tenth power.

Just bros rubbing on top of each other, all bro like.

Pidge watched them from the kitchen. “Aww. This makes me miss my lion.”

“Keith. No, no, no. I’m sensitive, please.” Lance begged under the paladin. “Have mercy on me. I’m with child. It’s your son.”

Keith’s face contorted with the stinging effort in burying his smile. “Pidge you might want to look away.”

Oh?

“Ew.”

“No. I’m going to murder Lance.”

Dude, why.

“Oh.” She perked, sat up, scraped the chair to the living room, and sat back down. “I’ll watch. _Criminal Minds_ is my shit.”

Lance feebly touched Pidge’s human leg. “Pidge, save me.”

Keith didn’t like that— he wrenched it off and pinned it down and penis, do not read into this.

Do not.

We’re just under our old teammate.

With him settling between our legs.

And his heavy weight pressing down on us.

Looking like a damn certified 20.

Shit, they were reading.

Lance was reading.

Pidge finger waved at him. “I’ll remember you, Lance.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more soft klance and awful jokes, have fun

 

Keith popped into his bedroom and jumped as Lance massaged the stump of both legs. His prosthetics laid on the sheet, soaking up the sun as it beamed through the opened window. Dust mites drifted. The squatting sunset shimmered  the lake a few yards out into a holographic disc of yellows and reds

Lance waved and lifted his legs. “Keith, check it out. I got no legs.”

“Don’t do that.” Keith patted the stumps and dropped face first on the bed. The sheets muffled his speech. “You know that creeps me out.”

Lance laughed at the back of Keith’s head. Dude was so revved up back in the day, fighting, planning, training—all action and no peace. But old man Keith was an over taxed housecat. He liked the stillness of him, felt like Keith was attainable and not starlight.

He reclined back, hands folded on his chest. “You don’t like my leg stumps?”

Keith shifted, showing one eye and half of his mouth. “It makes you look like an action figure.”

“You know people made legit action figures of us, right? I bought them all, they’re in the garage.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he whispered.

“It’s legit,” Lance murmured kindly. He combed the waves of the paladin’s hair without permission, but Keith didn’t bring an argument against the touch. “Your hair is a clip on.”

“Is your ego one?”

“Ha, ha.” He rolled his eyes but god, Keith’s whip sharp banter was sorely missed.

Not that Pidge lacked in the area, to be accurate she slaughtered in it, but Keith’s was a special brand. Like an old candy advertised and promoted heavily until the profits went down.

The bed shook under Keith’s subdued but violent laughter. He reemerged, face pink. “That was good, you have to give me it.”

“No I don’t.”

He did, in his mind but he would keep it there—searching for Lance’s sanction favored Keith well.

“Please. You’re the funny guy. Only you can approve jokes.”

“You can’t be emo and funny, Keith. You get to be one hot trait not two.”

“Then you can’t be pretty and funny,” said Keith, lifting his head high. Teeth rolled across his bottom lip,  birthing a shade of fire.

Keith, you—

You—

You smooth motherfu—

Lance traced the seam of thread on his sheets. Thirty, a war hero of Voltron, space cat pilot and Lance still had no defense system, no immunity to combat the guy’s sweet talk. “So gay.”

Like the grown man he was, Keith put his head to the sheets and rolled away like an annoyed cat, telling Lance from his side of the bed, “Fine. You’re ugly. You look like Zarkon’s butt or something.”

He played with the stubby ponytail, loosened the band, and bent the hair around his fingers. God, Lance, why are you so gay around Keith?

“Hey, he had a tight ass. Dude was a warlord.”

Lance stopped petting. It was getting homoerotic.

Keith rolled back with a sneer and Lance felt the sneer was for the loss of the fingers in his hair. “Are we really talking about our old enemy’s ass?”

“Yup. Isn’t aging fun.”

“Says you.” He shifted back after—key word here—after he manhandled his hand back on his scalp. And Lance pretended Keith was a tomcat he’d rescued from the streets and suffered from such a severe neglect that it was his duty as a fellow cat lover to pet the fuck out of this kitty.

Keith’s breaths left even, sleepy, relaxed. Seeing him content made him sleepy as well. He almost drifted like the old man he was becoming until the old paladin rumbled out, “Hey, real quick, can I borrow your car for a bit?”

“You mean Blue,” he corrected.

“Yes,” Keith groaned, annoyed that Lance wanted him to say the words back to him. “Your car that you named Blue like a loser.”

“Sure, are you going to go shopping at Hot Topic?”

“Not anymore.” Keith made an show of frowning over his shoulder. Lance shoved his face back. Stupid, old, pretty paladin. Take those honey darks eyes and diamond smile somewhere else.  “Nah, but seriously, wanted to get some Earth stuff. Like a toothbrush.”

“Earth stuff, can you get me some stuff too?”

“Yea, what?”

“Astroglide.”

“Fuck you.”

“And Pringles. The red kind, I don’t want that blasphemous sour cream shit in my house.”

“I can’t tell if you’re being legit.”

“And I want ice cream. Nutty ones, you know how much I love nuts.”

Keith sprang to his feet and hoisted Lance in his arms and started for the stairs.

Lance wailed his arms out and dug his fingers into the banister. “My legs.”

“Oh shit, I was about to throw you into the lake too.”

“You dick,” Lance grumbled from the princess hold.

Legit though, Keith couldn’t drop him and he was very ecstatic about the fact. Front row seats in Keith’s arms were more prized than the pilot seat in one of the lions. Fuck nebulas, burning stars, gassy planets, blazing red comets—this was the best thing the universe had to offer, Keith.

“Let me grab your legs. Then you can put them on and then I can drown you.”

“But Keith, the child.” He rubbed the non-existent swell of his belly with a mockery of paternal reverence.

“You’re not pregnant.”

Lance stopped rubbing. “I could be.”

“Fine. No legs.”

“Keith. No. I’m sorry.”

 

 

[x]

 

 

After a thorough lecture and an even more comprehensive how to guide from Lance, Keith peeled the truck down the driveway, dust pummeling and bits of gravel spitting under the wheel. The GPS on the dashboard should get him around fine in the city, but he still lent Keith his cell phone for whatever emergency that may or may not come up. Guy been in space so long, he feared Keith might not know how to get to the damn contacts.

He went inside the barn where Pidge tweaked on old and new machinery. One of her laptops sat on a toolbox rigged to two speakers and played music loud enough to be heard over the buzz of a drill, or the heat of a blowtorch.

Lance slid the tarp off of the motorcycle he had on the wraps for a bit and rolled a stool next to it, staring at WIP parts. He didn’t know what the attraction was about repairing old junk only that it settled parts Voltron awoke and left on after the war. Maybe it was the busy work for his hands, and work laborious like being a paladin. The weight of metal almost like his Bayard. The silver and chrome of metal and the splash of color on the hub just like Blue.

Pidge picked up the remote and lowered the chorus of Led Zeppelin.

“So Keith’s here?” Pidge started.

“Observant,” he said, sticking his hand inside the skeleton of the bike.

“He keeps giving you that look.”

“His bitch face one.” He laughed. “Silly rabbit, that’s his everyday face.”

“Har, har. No I’m talking about that gay one that we all had to endure while fighting Zarkon and Lotor for the past decade.”

Lance clutched his invisible pearl necklace. “Us, gay? My stars.”

She drilled him with a bored look. “You do know everyone knew about you two hooking up. You tried to be subtle but it’s you and Keith so it was as much subtly as a power cannon.”

“We kinda happened,” he admitted, eyes cast down. He looked at his fingers and he could remember how Keith’s silky hair glided through his fingers like black ink.

 Creepy, maybe.

A sap, totally.

In love, a likely outcome

So maybe while skimming through this, you noticed some sort of tension between Lance and Keith— well boys and girls, this wasn’t thinly hinted _are they into each other or are they just really, really good friends_ , they were an item once.

 So hence the flirting and the touching and the massive elephant in the room that was Lance’s inextinguishable feelings. He carried the torch long and far, people. Try as he might to blow it out with sexy dames and guys with abs harder than diamonds and a few short relationships, he still wanted the guy. Still cared. Still wondered and worried for his stupid mullet while he searched the galaxy for answers.

And now his ex-boyfriend, who Lance harbored something sweet and strong for, was chilling at his place because why the fuck not, right. Not like they were fuck buddies turned lovers for years while fighting space baddies at every corner. Not like he didn’t see or have Keith in every position developed in Kamasutra. Not like he didn’t toughen up or cut the shit so his failures wouldn’t cause Keith’s lion to take a hit. Not like they had something real special, something difficult to find on Earth or the billion other planets in the universe.

Nah.

Nah.

Like he saved the universe, right?

So why did it feel kind of like it was fucking him over royally?

It wasn’t because he stole all those coins from the fountain, right; come one Pidge was guilty too.

They happened.

It ended.

End of slideshow, please don’t ask any questions as he was not taking any currently.

“But you guys broke it off, right?” She guessed.

The words gutted him, little fleshing eating piranhas inside his chest.

His hands fumbled for something to work, they coiled on the handle bar and peeled at the old rubber around the steel. He had plans to replace it anyway so he didn’t feel much guilt in tearing it fragment by fragment.

“I mean,” he started, tearing a piece off. “It was sex at first— stop making that face, girl— and I didn’t want shit else from him at the time. He pissed me off. He did stupid shit… And I dunno, shit changed. We weren’t just messing around. He would…”

He tipped his head back. “Fuck, do you really want to hear about this?”

“No but you look mopey about him and I hate your mopey face.”

“God…look it just got personal real quick and once we got Zarkon and Lotor down…Keith changed his mind. He felt we only got together cause of convenience. That this was the time for us to live our lives for ourselves. See what’s out there. Try something new.”

Pidge adopted the _oh no he didn’t_ voice real fast. “He did not say that to you?”

“I’m summing it up.” He waved his hand to wipe away the hostility in Pidge’s eyes. “He said some mean shit but so did I. Called him Galra trash.”

He felt bad about it then, spitting the words like projectile acid, and their repeating was no different. Granted Keith had an icy retort for Lance after that but fighting sucked and time showed him a lot of shit he said was done in panic and hurt.

“Wow.”

“Yea, so I’m not blameless either. I got what he meant years later but it wasn’t convenient for me. Maybe at first but it wasn’t after. I could have a harem of girls and guys worshipping me and I would still be looking for his stupid mullet.”

“Are you going to get back together?”

Like he wanted to, yea, but fucking even entertaining the thought scared the bee-Jesus out of him. It had been so long since then and so much happened between that time. Keith could’ve honestly purged him out of his system for all he knew.

“He’s here to see you, Pidge. Plus I’m kinda talking to that guy.”

She was rooting for him. Pidge was loyal like that, supportive and the type of friend everyone wondered if you were secretly dating but chasing Keith now was recovering a star about to go supernova. At this point of his life, Lance had his fill of space

This support had a point, Robert found it, started a whole city on it filled with skyscrapers and ant sized humans.

Pidge said, “Robert. The guy who calls you ‘his lion’ un-ironically, that’s the one who you’re gonna go with? Dude, I’m not one to judge but…”

“It’s cute.“ Lance defended.

He thought it was sweet and to come from a guy Lance never considered to have much of a chance with, it made his heart run. Robert had a  Cali Valley good looks, the body to ship him to Hollywood, and the basic math to get him through the register.

Okay, that was a little mean…but the guy wasn’t an all-star in the intellect department.

“My lion,” Pidge tested and proceeded to claw feverishly at her throat as though she ingested a poison.

Fine, it was traveling down the path to Cringeville but it was sweet in its own right.

Lance rolled his eyes once she toppled to the floor and wheezed. “Fuck you. I should’ve kept those texts to myself.”

Pidge popped on her stool. “Lance, he’s into you because of the paladin thing.”

“Oh, we’re gonna play this game. Okay explain Erika.”

“Uh.”

He fired off. “Nicole.”

“That was…” Pidge scrambled.

“Freya,” he listed.

“Oh come on.” She pointed. “She was a babe. You thought so too.”

Lance shouted back with a chuckle. “She sold your clothes at a swamp meat.”

“It got a high price,” the former paladin mumbled thinly.

Lance gave Pidge a long look., a _please tell me you did not just use that argument as a valid point_. “This is the one time I get to say it and be in the right, you are stupid.”

“In my defense, I’ve never had that many girls after me. I’m not you, Mr. ShowStopper.”

“God made you smart and he made me pretty,” he dragged the back of his hand reverently across his jawline. “ These are our gifts to bear.”

“You’re not serious about Robert. Tell me something you like about him that’s not a body part.”

Okay. No problem.

Start the timer.

Robert had a…no, that’s a body part.

He’s really…body part.

He looks big—fuck.

Lance settled with. “He’s really devoted to his health.”

Pidge clapped slowly. “Wow. Marriage quality.”

“We’re just talking!”

“You gonna tell him your ex-boyfriend stood the night?”

“No,” he huffed like Pidge just asked him why water was wet when you touched it. “He’s gonna ask a lot of questions then he’s gonna be like ‘so do you still have a thing for him’ and I’ll have to be ‘Oh no. He’s not hot at all. He isn’t the first guy I fell for.’ Cause I can’t honestly tell him, ‘hell yea, dude, his ass is on point.’ That’s a foul with chicks and guys.”

“So Keith has a chance?”

“I have metal legs.”

She laughed, rolling one of her shoulders until the joint popped. “Boy, I will go Full Metal Alchemist on your ass then laser you like Superman.”

“You don’t have laser vision.”

“I do, ask Slav.”

“Anyway, since Keith is here. I was wondering…” Lance started humming.

“Nice. Change the subject.”

“I was wondering,” he repeated, louder. “ Since Keith’s back, why don’t we call up everyone else and have little reunion.”

“Um, Allura’s kinda a queen with subjects and people to govern over. Kinda like a president but everyone there actually likes her and they don’t use that shitty electoral college system,” said Pidge, dryly. Sahara dry.

Alteans had vacations, right? “I’m sure she can take a day off.”

“You want to have everyone in this house, you’re insane.”

“There’s enough room,” Lance assured. “ Plus people can bunk together.”

“Someone.” Pidge sucked on her bottom lip noisily, tilting her head side to side like a bird. “Like Keith.”

“Look, I’m just happy he’s here. On Earth. Not in a part of the galaxy I can’t get to. I like knowing everyone’s okay. Him included, I don’t need more.”

Dude, his subconscious nudged, dude Keith’s looking really good though and come on, Robert’s okay for regular people but you’re a former paladin. A damn hero.

And Keith could count higher than ten.

And he saved your ass countless times, been on the front lines, deep in enemies and laser fire.

And he visited you each day during your PT sessions, even if all he did was shout insults to uplift your sinking spirit, cause you couldn’t manage to stand let alone walking and that killed a war hero like you.

And one more thing—

 Did you forget how good he was at eating ass?

Seriously.

You cried.

Remember or are we playing the amnesia game?

Ignorant of Lance’s internal gay suffering, Pidge said. “Fucking sap, really. What happened to my silly ninja shooter?”

He applied a figurative karate chop to the memory of Keith’s mane buried  between his thighs, that fire collected in his dark eyes when he was _hot_ and _bothered_ from simply looking at him, the wet tongue curling deep in his—

This was _not_ ignoring your deep seated feelings for your ex, Lance.

A screwdriver sailed past the swell of his nose and collided into the wall, chipping it.

“Pidge,” he gasped. “What if you hit me?”

“Dude,” she tapped the bionic eyeball triumphantly. “I used my robot eye. That shit literally maps out the trajectory.”

“Stop upgrading it. I know for a fact that was not installed. And second, I slay you every time we play Call of Duty so I’m still the sharp shooter.”

She scratched her head. “Whatever. Also, if you want a high school reunion then we need to get food and lots of toilet paper.”

“Ah, I forgot about Hunk’s monster shits.”

“Lance, that was Coran.”

“And Hunk.”

Pidge shivered at the memory. “We need to stop having these conversations about our friends. It’s getting creepy how much we know about each other.”

“Like Shiro’s BO.”

“Allura’s ear wax.”

Lance laughed. “Hunk’s hairy ass.”

Pidge snapped her fingers repeatedly in excitement and pointed her index finger. “Keith’s double jointed feet.”

“Your squeaky farts.”

“One time. One time.”

“Why are you getting mad? I let one rip in the lion too, we’re human.”

“Well you and your stupid mud masks,” she protested.

“Those stupid mud masks are the reason my skin is on point and you’re not invited when I go to Marshals to buy face cream.”

“I’ll give you face creams.”

“Was that a jizz joke?”

“Yea.”

 

 

[x]

 

Keith walked up the stairs, hands filled with plastic bags from the store. Against his better judgment, he bought Lance Pringles, the original, and his favorite brand of ice cream. Maybe Lance had been only joking like he always did, but Keith didn’t want to be caught off guard without Pringles and ice cream.

The living room glowed from the TV. Pidge sat cross-legged on the floor with a large bowl of popcorn while Lance kicked out his metal legs on the love seat behind her. With light coming off the screen, Lance’s blue eyes tricked Keith into seeing the galaxy again. It's swirly nebulas bright with colors unforeseen on earth. It's long treks of night sky touched by burning suns, white moons, and clunky meteors.

Lance waved with his galaxy eyes and not for the last time this day, Keith thought he was the biggest idiot in the universe. _I let him go._

_I let this annoying galaxy guy go on his own way._

Lance’s voice bubbled into his introspection.  “Keith, join us.”

“Let me put away the—“ No, don’t tell him you got ice cream. It was a joke and you bought it seriously like some idiot. “The…the stuff.” Ah, yea, _the stuff_ ; totally not warranting any suspicion, good job.

Run, Keith.

No—burn the ice cream.

And you got him the Pringles, too, why did you get him Pringles too?

Fuck it, toss that too.

Get rid of the evidence.

No, better idea, just leave earth and return when you’re not in love with Lance.

Keith stuffed the ice cream carton in the back, far from sight,  and repeated the treatment for the Pringles and returned to the living room.

Lance folded his legs to make room for Keith. “Pidge finally cracked our neighbor’s password. What a noob, he has no idea his neighbors are fucking Voltron.”

Lance and Pidge traded palms, proud of their juvenile law breaking.

“How does he keep figuring it out that someone hacked it?”

“I think it’s the rec, right? We don’t watch the same shit so he’s probably tripping about all the poop porn we watch.”

Keith waited, very hopeful for the punchline or Lance’s trademark shark grin _I’m a little shit bag who makes gross jokes about everything so watch out because I’m a fucking liar_.

“It’s all that hentai crap,” said Pidge with a mouthful of buttery popcorn.

“Sorry you said art wrong. And Keith, no I don’t watch poop porn. Pidge does, I only do it too because of peer pressure.”

“I’m trying to eat popcorn. Stop saying poop.”

“Poop,” Lance repeated to get a rise with his shit eating shark grin and it had been so, so long since he experienced this. The back and forth. The easy flow of dialogue between everyone. Keith missed this, the whole team, the fact he could sit in the room and not say a thing but be a part of the whole conversation.

They got him. When Keith preferred his silence, his space for anger, his need to intimate touches.

Pidge swiveled and fired off a buttery kernel at Lance’s face and clocked him in the eye. “Fucking Backyard Sluts watcher.”

Lance picked up the flavored missile and ate it. “Hey, we agreed we liked Backyard Sluts. It’s a classic, you have The Godfather, Indiana Jones, and Backyard Sluts.”

“I said I liked The Lost Temple of Poontang.”

The blue paladin scoffed. “Ugh, uncultured.”

Pidge leaned her head back and stared at him from the awkward angle. “Fine, Keith, what’s your favorite porn?”

“I…don't really watch porn.”

“Not for even fun?” Lance questioned.

“Like to jerk off?” Keith asked. Like ha-ha fun or rubbing my cock fun.

Pidge’s face screwed up like she bit down on a lemon, skin and all. “Gross.”

“Keith, my man, porn is for fun. Not for your penis.”

“Then we view pornography very differently.”

He tapped Pidge on the shoulder. “Put on Backyard Sluts. We must train Keith.” To Keith, he said. “I will show you the way.”

Keith shrugged. “I guess…Lance, stop rubbing my shoulders.”

The paladin’s breath ghosted warmly on his skin.

“I’m warming you up,” he whispered, voice calibrated for the tease but experience with the man told Keith that was his sex voice. The one he used at inappropriate moments to rile him. The one that he succeeded with on every account all on the fact it slithered under Keith’s skin and warmed his blood.

“Lance,” he hissed, cause the touch was having all the w _rong_ kind of effects on him and by wrong he meant right, and it wouldn’t do to pop a woody right before the porn started.

Hand still making patterns on his spine and voice precariously close, Lance said as he went to point at the screen. “Now look how big boob blonde one just dives in on that dick. Such expertise. All the grace in the world. And then when she says, ‘cum on my tits’, well the Academy should just give her the award already.”

“You can’t suck dick like that.”

He snorted. “Dude, yea.”

Like Lance would know…Wait, Lance _would know_. Oral King.

Keith derailed his thoughts. “With that size, it should be coming out her spine.”

Lance gave the most childish giggle. “Ha. Coming.”

“This is why I dislike Backyard Sluts, unreasonable, now Temple is another story,” Pidge commented from ground level, crunching on popcorn.

“They say the path to greatness is a lonely one. I am alone.”

“Shut up, doofus.”

Lance started to sing. “My shadow is the only one that walks beside me.”

“Keith, murder him.”

“Gladly.” Keith shifted, murder pasted on his face. Lance saw through the curtain and let Keith pin him down again.

 _Let_ , a big emphasis there, cause over the years as paladin Lance had grown in strength and hand to hand combat so while as young adults, Keith bested him at each occurrence, but as adults Lance could and did hold his own and managed to put Keith on his ass

Keith ghosted his fingers under his arms and for the pits and, god, he remembered all the tiny places of Lance. The ones to make him laugh. The ones to curl him into sleep. The ones to light up the fire in him.

I know your places and your parts, man. They feel like they’re somehow my parts as well.

Shame on Keith to exploit it again. To twist this knowledge now just to be close to Lance.

 “Dude, tickling? Again.”

Keith persisted.

Lance acted like it was a great annoyance.

They’re both full of shit but physical contact was good to have again.

Essential.

Kind of like air in the lungs.

Dew on the grass.

Clouds in the sky

How did he manage the years without Lance’s galaxy eyes?

Pidge called them out on it, chomping on microwaved popcorn.  “I said murder, not fondle.”

Lance giggled, the thirty-year-old man gone and in his place eighteen-year-old Lance, who flew a giant space cat into a black hole.  Declared Keith his rival. Fought Keith on every front until he was supporting Keith on every front, backing him up and taking him down to common sense when Keith’s fury got control over him.

This stupid guy.

This stupid guy makes me feel like I’m a teenager again.

I’m old in my body but young in my mind kind of feeling.

Lance arched, grinning too wickedly to be anything but flirty. “Keith, is that your bayard or is Backyard Sluts doing it for you?

Under Lance and Keith’s combined weight, Lance’s cell chimed with a text.

To get precise, it rang with Robert’s designated ringtone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr: pro-derp

**Author's Note:**

> This will be short...ish. Promise, the goal is 4-5 chaps. I don't have an update schedule since this is an impromptu fic so be patient for me, please!
> 
> Comments and kudos keep my booty motivated and my ass in that game, yo.
> 
> tumblr: pro-derp, hmu (that's what cool ppl say, right? *tries to sound hip*)


End file.
